by SJ Himes
The room was different and yet familiar, and his chest ached. Shades of Christmases past flitted in the room, but the warmth and love in every carefully placed decoration banished them to the past where they belonged.
He put a hand to his sternum and pushed; he bit his lip and leaned on the wall, eyes straining to take in the beautiful effort his angel put forth.
He never cried. Ever…but he was perilously close to it now.
Silas stood hesitantly in the center of the room, wearing an endearingly ugly sweater covered in red-nosed reindeer, a smile on his face and worry in his gorgeous green eyes.
“Gee?” Silas asked, voice small. “Do you like it? I know you don’t talk about the holidays, and Jim said something about your parents, but I thought….that maybe you would want to celebrate Christmas with me…” Silas trailed off, his worry growing. He’d done all this not for himself, but for Gee, and he was afraid his gesture was unwelcome. Cursing himself for being an emotionally closed off and oblivious fool, Gael gave Silas a wavering smile, tears coming to his own eyes.
Gael pushed off from the wall, and made it to Silas in the smallest measure of time. He pulled his angel to him, and buried his face in his soft hair, tears wetting his cheeks and his body shaking. Silas wrapped his arms around his shoulders, and held him back, tight and true.
Gee held Silas, trying to contain himself, but his emotions were straining to be free and he had almost no control after the events at the garage, and now this. Silas was hugging him back just as urgently, standing on his toes, kissing his neck and shoulder.
“I love you, Gael.”
“Oh, god,” Gael sobbed, hard, and picked Silas up. His wish came true with those few words, and he had everything he ever needed in his arms. His angel climbed him, and his lithe legs went around his hips, and Gael moved them to the couch. They tumbled over the arm, and fell to the cushions, Silas on top of him. Silas let out a gasp, and Gael cupped his beautiful face with both of his hands, holding him still.
“I love you too, Silas,” Gee whispered. Silas’ eyes lit up in wonder and joy.
And he did love Silas. It took an angel in an alley to remind him how to love, after years of blood and death and pain.
…
Christmas morning came in quietly, the morning light diffused by the snow blanketing the ground and the wet chill in the air. Traffic was nonexistent, and the street was empty of movement and sound. Dawn broke over Boston, the sun slicing through the clouds, dancing through the curtains of Gee’s bedroom, the light flaring against the walls.
Gee was awake, Silas asleep on his chest. Usually at this time he would be getting up, getting dressed and going in to cover for someone else so they could have the day off, but this time he was in bed, and staying there. For the first time ever he was not working on Christmas, and he was spending the day with Silas. They weren’t exchanging gifts. Silas still had no access to his bank accounts, and couldn’t work without ID, and Gee had no idea how to get Silas a gift anyway. In fact, Gee had no experience buying gifts at all, for anyone. Not even Jim.
His cell buzzed on the nightstand, and he contemplated ignoring it, but he ran the risk of it ringing next and waking Silas. He carefully picked it up and woke the screen, hoping it wasn’t a broadcast recall, a large-scale emergency.
It was a text, and from Jim. The captain had worked the overnight, and was supposed to be getting out soon.
I’ll be there soon. Some men were at the garage asking about Silas. Stay inside. They’re over here now. I just got rid of them. –Cap
FUCK. If they were at the EMS garage first…Michael and Simon worked the overnight. Michael may have said something.
Gee slid out from under Silas, his lover barely reacting, still deeply asleep. Gee padded silently to the window facing the street, staying at an angle, and peered out through the curtains.
There was a black SUV idling at the end of the street, several houses down, and he didn’t recognize it. The engine was running, exhaust frosting in the cold air. He moved, going as fast as he could, and went to the opposite window, and got a glimpse of two men in dark jackets standing at the other end of the street, watching his house. He looked down, to his front yard, and there were fresh tracks in the otherwise pristine snow. Gee pulled back from the window, and went for his closet.
He paused at the bedroom door, listening. The first floor was still dark, and quiet. His doors and windows were locked every night, and he checked them before he went to bed, and he’d been awake for the last hour or so and hadn’t heard anything, so he felt safe in thinking the men outside hadn’t tried to get in yet.
Gee opened his closet, forgoing quiet for speed. What he needed was in the far back, where he put it ten years ago and never looked at it since. He pulled stuff out of the way and threw it on the floor, searching for his old rucksack.
“Gee? What’s going on?” Silas asked, sleep and nerves battling as his young lover struggled up from the blankets.
“Your father knows you’re here,” Gee said calmly, reaching back as far as he could and grabbing the rough fabric of his military bag. He yanked, and it gave way in a tumble of old shoes and boots. “There are men outside watching the house, both ends of the street, and they’re down in the yard too.”
Gee returned to the bed, Silas sitting up, frantically blinking sleep from his eyes. “What? He’s here?” Silas’ voice was a scratchy squeak in alarm, and Gee leaned over and put a hand on his shoulder, catching his eyes. Panic flamed in the emerald depths.
“Breathe. Slow. In and out.” Gee breathed with him, in and out, and Silas calmed down. “Good. Get dressed. Boots, sweater, jacket. Grab the cell I got you too.” Silas scrambled from bed, hurriedly following instructions.
Gael opened his rucksack, and the scent of desert and dust filled his senses. He beat back the memories, the urgent threat to Silas giving him focus. Gee had been a medic in the first waves of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and he spent five years putting men back together in the worst conditions known to humanity. Many times in active combat, and he had killed more than his fair share of enemy militants defending his fallen brothers.
He found his vest, buried at the bottom of his bag, and while the Kevlar plates weren’t in it, the material was still tough. It was the items in the pockets he wanted more than anything, and he thanked his training that he’d put his weapons away after cleaning them. He dropped his knives, his asp, and a set of steel and leather knuckle busters on the bed, and got dressed. Gee pulled on boots and a thick sweater, his jeans sufficient for what he was about to do. He picked up his cell, and dialed just as Silas finished getting dressed, his own cell in his shaking hands.
“Gee? I’m on my way,” Jim answered. Worry and stress tightened the captain’s words, and Gee could hear how bad Jim was expecting things to get. “I’ll be there in ten.”
“They’re here.” Gael said, returning to the window. The SUV was closer, and men were getting out of the vehicle, and there were more tracks in his yard. They were getting ready to break in, and if this was a sanctioned visit from the police, then they would have sent one or two men, and politely knocked. The men watching at the end of the street were gone, presumably the owners of the additional tracks in his yard. “Jim, there’s over six men for sure. They’ve come for him.”
Silence.
“Gee, don’t do anything that’ll get you put in jail,” Jim warned, and Gee backed away from the window, picking up his asp and putting it in his back pocket. Silas watched him, eyes wide. “You can’t be with that boy if you’re in jail for murder.”
“Self-defense isn’t murder, Jim. I’m just a veteran protecting my home from burglars on Christmas. Park at the north end of the street, and wait for Silas.”
Gee hung up on Jim’s protests, and he dialed again. Silas was locking up from fear, and it was there in that reaction that Gee got the greatest impression of just how bad Silas’ life had been growing up. If Franklin Warner was here and made the stupid mistake of comin
g for Silas himself, he was going to find himself beaten and bleeding on the floor.
“911, state your emergency.”
“This is Gael Dominic, at 543 Oakhurst Road. I’m calling to report a home invasion. Several armed men broke into my house and I had to use extreme force in defending myself. Please send a couple of ambulances and the police.”
Gael threw his cell on the bed. He chose his old CRKT, and slipped it in his other pocket, and then slid the steel and leather knuckles over the fingers of his left hand. Taking Silas’ hand, he pulled him out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs. Silas gripped him back tightly, terrified.
Glass shattered downstairs, from the direction of the kitchen door. Silas jumped, and whimpered. Gee bent down, and whispered in his ear.
“I’m going to clear a path for you. You will run.” Silas tried to shake his head, and more glass broke. The front window, next to the main door. “Angel. You will run.”
Footsteps, voices. At least four men. They would be at the stairs in seconds.
“Out the kitchen door, through the back. Out the break in the hedges on the right side of the backyard. Run through the yards until you get to the end of the street. Jim will be there. Don’t stop. Don’t look back.”
“Gee…” Silas tried to protest, but his voice failed at the first sound of footsteps on the stairs. A shadow moved along the wall, and Gee waited.
“I love you.” Gee kissed Silas’ cheek.
Gael strode forward, pulling Silas with him with his left hand, and he palmed his asp with his right.
He snapped the black metal rod out as the intruder gained the top of the stairs, and the surprise on the man’s face told Gee that they were expecting to catch him and Silas unawares. The asp struck the man across his jaw, and the crunch of metal meeting bone mixed with a strangled scream ripped through the house. The man toppled backwards, helped along by Gee, boot in his chest, and he fell down the stairs, crashing into two other men on his way down.
Gee followed, holding onto Silas, and he kicked one man in the head as he attempted to untangle himself from his buddy. Gee swung the asp again, breaking the forearm of the third man, the gun in his hand clattering to the stairs and falling into the shadows. Gee and Silas made the first floor, and Gee headed for the kitchen, purpose and violence melding seamlessly. Another figure came out from the shadows. Gee struck fast, the asp claiming another broken bone, the collarbone so important when trying to level a gun on a target, and Gee rendered it useless with a swing.
Screams and curses bounced off the walls, and Gee pressed Silas between him and the wall as he made it to the open kitchen door. Two men were about to walk in, and Gael brought the asp down on the head of the first one through the door, dropping him like a wet towel after a shower. He needed both hands when the second man saw him, and brought out his weapon as he stepped through the door. Gee dropped his asp, and took the last step to close the distance between him and the attacker. The man didn’t even have time to get his finger on the trigger before Gee knocked the gun away and out the door, landing somewhere in the snow.
The man tackled him, and they went to the floor. Gee caught a blow to his chin, but he shook it off, and levered back with his left hand, his steel fist cracking across the man’s cheekbone. Gee flipped under and then over the stunned man and Gee worked his arm around his neck.
Ten seconds, and he was out.
Gee rolled off of the unconscious man, and grabbed Silas. His angel was gaping, hands clasping his cell to his chest and staring at the men laying on the floor. Gee looked out the door, and the way for Silas was clear. Shouts were coming from the front of the house and the stairs, and they had seconds before they were converged on from both sides. He yanked Silas’ cell from his rigid grip and dialed Jim. The captain answered immediately, and Gael could hear sirens approaching the house.
Less than two minutes from the sound of the sirens, and things were about to get very messy. The cops, when they came, would be too late, and there was no guarantee they would be friendly. Franklin Warner had cops in his pocket.
“Jim, I’m sending Silas out now.” He gave the cell back to Silas, and dragged him out the door. Gael ran with Silas to the edge of his yard, and pushed Silas through the break in the hedges. “Run! Run now and don’t stop!”
Silas tried to grab his hand, but Gee pushed his angel into the neighbor’s yard and pointed. “Run! Now!”
Silas ran, boots sliding in the fresh snow, but he went.
A shout came from inside the house, and Gael waited a heartbeat to watch Silas cut through the neighbors’ yards, heading for the end of the street. He had a glimpse of Jim’s car pull up to the curb, and the captain got out just as Silas made it to him. Confident that Jim could keep Silas safe, Gael turned back to the house, and barely dodged the blow aimed for his head.
Gael snarled, and tackled the man, and he fought harder than he ever had before, the view of pristine snow in his peaceful backyard melding with the unforgettable streets of a war-torn village, the taste of sand and blood on his tongue.
Somehow he ended up back in his house, blood dripping from his left hand, the leather straps of the steel buster soaked. He fell back against the wall of his kitchen, staring down at the bodies he’d left littering the floor, and he barely reacted to the front door crashing inwards, men with badges and guns drawn storming through, shouting at him to put his hands up.
Chapter Nine
Jim’s big arm around his shoulders was the only thing keeping him upright. Silas huddled in the captain’s shadow, both of them in a conference room inside the local BPD precinct. Jim was the only reason Silas was there at all, the captain’s rank and position in the community giving them both some measure of protection. Here Silas had no idea which cops were on his father’s payroll and which ones were clean, and he was staying plastered to the captain. His identity was out of the bag now, and Silas kept watching the doors, expecting to see his father any second.
They watched hours ago through the glass walls as Gael was led in handcuffs past them to where Silas was assuming was an interrogation room. He looked only a little worse for wear, a small scrape on his cheek, but otherwise unharmed. A detective had taken Silas’ statement, and with Jim’s encouragement, he told the man everything. From years of abuse, to escaping after his father beat him, to the shooting, and Gee finding him, and eventually saving him the next morning at the hospital. Detective Barnes, a thirty-something man with GQ fashion-sense and eyes that gave away nothing, showed no reaction to Silas’ story, and once Jim added his piece, had told them to stay put and left. That was over an hour ago and it was now after noon, hours after the attack on Gee’s house.
“What’s happening? Are they going to charge Gee?” Silas worried aloud, nerves ready to snap.
“I’m not sure. It should be cut and dry self-defense, considering our statements along with the fact Gee’s house was obviously broken into, and he doesn’t own a gun. That detective was hard to read, though,” Jim answered, rubbing his back. “We may be here for a long time.”
Activity in the bullpen increased, and Silas stiffened in instinctual reaction to the first sight of his father in weeks. Franklin Warner strode into the room like he owned it, and uniformed cops and plainclothes alike all parted before him. His entourage was smaller than usual, and Silas just knew that was because Gael had torn through them like an avenging angel, knocking down the number of henchmen his father liked to tow about with him. Silas let free a feral grin, wishing he could have seen more of the carnage. Some of the men who stormed the house that morning were directly responsible for a few of the bruises that only just finished fading away on his body these past weeks, and part of him wished he could have done some damage in return.
When their eyes met, Silas was still grinning, and he came back from visions of knocking some bastards’ heads together when his father glared at him through the glass. Franklin stepped forward, and Jim swore, seeing his father. Jim moved between him and his fathe
r, even though they were separated by twenty feet and the glass conference room wall. Franklin was heading their way, and Silas held fast, even though he was terrified. He was done running from his old man.
Suddenly a hand came up in front of his father, and DA Warner stopped in his tracks. Detective Barnes was there, and the two men began speaking. Silas couldn’t hear anything, but he watched around Jim’s broad back, confused and hopeful.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Silas asked, and Jim was about to answer when chaos exploded in the bullpen.
Detective Barnes said something to Warner, and gestured towards the other side of the room. Two men in handcuffs were being led away, and Silas recognized them as some of the men that Gael fought that morning. They were better off than their buddies, since the rest of them had left the scene that morning in ambulances.
Shouts could be heard through the glass, and Silas looked back in time to see his father completely lose it. The monster that he knew was under the polished façade came out in a burst of frenetic energy, and Silas gaped as his father swung wildly at Detective Barnes. The detective ducked the blow, and Franklin Warner found himself face-planting a desk, hands behind his back.
Cops swarmed on his father and the men who came with him, and Silas lost sight of him in the ensuing mess. He watched, completely shocked, and at a total loss for words. What did Barnes say to his father to make him go ballistic like that?
“Idiot,” Jim mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head.
